Traits Of A Habitual Liar

Lying has become an integral part of living. Everyone, today, lie in some or the other situation, either to save their skin or get out of it completely. However, these small lies here and there do not make us a compulsive or habitual liar. Research has revealed that there are different types of liars, who develop the skill of lying over a period of time. There are many such skillful and habitual liars that make it difficult for us to distinguish between a genuine person and a skillful liar. These are the people who love lying and live to protect their lies. They are known as pathological liars. On the other hand, you can even come across professional liars who completely tune themselves to be a liar. These professionals or habitual liars are quite cunning and smart and know well how to cover up their lies. This article provides you with certain traits and characteristics of a habitual liar.

 

Maintaining eye contact is something that only a confident and truthful person can do. A habitual liar will always avoid making eye contact with any person. Though you might find him/her constantly jabbering and narrating fabricated stories, when it comes to actually speaking eye to eye with a person, the person might walk away or stop chattering. Shifty eye contact is the most common trait of a habitual liar.

 

Change of the subject is a weapon used by a habitual liar to avoid any further questions that can otherwise lead to a complicated situation. When the person runs out of stories and fictional narrations, he/she feels uncomfortable and prefers to change the topic instead. This gives the person a chance to escape from the lies and easily cover up the missing links in the conversation.

 

A habitual liar will always display a playful and squirmy behavior unknowingly. You will find him/her playing with objects or fidgeting with the mobile phones or handbags, while speaking out the strings of lies. Habitual liars love to place a hurdle in between themselves and the person whom they are speaking to. For instance, a simple act such as placing a cup of coffee between the two is an attempt to cover up the act of lying.

 

A person who is a habitual liar will lack genuine emotions like other people. He/she might experience few basic feelings such as anger, fear and lust, but certain higher level emotions are seemingly not present. Such persons try to fake certain emotions in order to fit themselves in a group or with other people.

 

A habitual liar may always lives in an illusion that whatever he/she is addicted to is a genuine need and not an obsession The person does not put in any effort to give up or reduce his/her addiction; rather he/she tries and manipulate situations to achieve and satisfy his/her so called ‘need’.

 

Explanations are one thing that you can receive in bulk from habitual liars. When asked a particular question, you can find them fumbling around and blurting out irrelevant details. Remember, explanations are only given when a person wants to cover up certain facts. They tend to speak out details that are not at all relevant to the question asked, in order to hide or cover up certain distorted account.

 

A habitual liar can never take responsibility for his/her behavior, and if confronted and questioned for a behavior, the person often blames other people or situations. Even when there are evidences against the liar, he/she would refuse to admit the responsibility and try to sound convincing, giving excuses and explanations to prove the evidences against him/her to be false or untrue.

 

Habitual liars follow one policy in life - why grow up. Some sort of abuse and neglect in their childhood tends to freeze such people in their childhood levels of development. Though they might look and act to be an adult, some of their core thinking is stuck in the thought process that once existed during the boyhood days. These patterns tend to come out more strongly in stressful situations.